Unit 16:Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849)

_He was more interested in aesthetics than in ethics. In other words, his main concern as a
self-conscious artist was cultivating beauty, not teaching morality. (“Art for Art’s sake/ from
Germany). He did not rely primarily on local history and customs, but preferred to deal with
eccentric and sometimes even extravagant subject matter.

_He borrowed themes from the popular culture of his time, by experimenting new techniques
and making innovative use of the narrative conventions he inherited. He also created several
fictional genres.

_His interest in criminal psychology inspired Dostoevsky.

_Nowadays considered great literary figure / Before / drug addict and alcoholic that used his
experiences to write horror stories.

_He worked carefully, structured his writing with minute precision.

Life: He was born in Boston, the second son of itinerant actors. His father, a man of bohemian
lifestyle, had already abandoned the family when his mother died in Richmond (Virginia),
leaving three younf children, The orphans became wards of different foster parents. Edgar
was brought up by John Allan, a wealthy tobacco merchant, and his childless wife. The boy,
renamed Allan, was given a good primary education in Richmond and later in Britain, where
the Allan spent five years. He entered the University of Virginia at the age of seventeen, but
didn0t return after the Christmas recess. John Allan disapproved his restless character and
literary aspirations. Edgar fled to Boston, where he published his first book of poetry and
enlisted in the army. He was expelled. By then he had already published his second collection
of poems. After Mrs Allan’s death her husband remarried and the new couple had children
their own. The relation with his father came to end. Poe turned to his biological family in
Baltimore.

He entered his tales in various competitions. He began to contribute to the Southern Litereary
Messenger with stories. He then moved to New York City with his wife Virginia. He became the
editor of Graham’s Magazine and with his contributions, managed to quadruple the number of
subscriptions.

His professional anxieties, combined with the problems of his private life made him sink into a
state of severe depression. In 1842 his wife had a violent haemorrhage, the first sign of the
tuberculosis which would kill her five years later. Until Virginia’s death in 1847, Poe suffered
the constant fear of losing her, and he was driven to alcohol and drugs in his most painful
moments.

In 1844 he published “The Raven”, the poem that made him famous. He entered the literary
life of New York and began to give lectures. He became a reviewer for the Broadway Journal,
later its editor, and finally its proprietor. In 1846 he was forced to stop its publication due to
physical illness combined with nervous depression. After his wife’s death, he fell ill. In October
1849 he was found in a semi – conscious and delirious state by an old friend in a Baltimore
street. He died in hospital four days later under mysterious circumstances.
He began his creative career as a poet with 3 collections of poetry. He then turned to short
story. Poe preferred short stories to novels because they “cannot be read at one sitting” and
thus “deprives itself, of course of the immense force derivable from totality.”

A strong Gothic strain prevails in Poe’s stories. The gothic tradition characterized by the use of
the fantastic, irrational and supernatural, emerged in the eighteenth century as a reaction
against the rationality and order that dominated the Age of reason. By the 19th century Gothic
no longer implied “medieval” buy simply referred to works intended to inspire terror with
macabre plots full of horror, violence, mystery and suspense. Since Poe both ridiculed and
admired 19th century Gothic tales, his own Gothic pieces were to a certain extent satires on the
German and British examples of the genre.

“The Masque of the Red Death”

_ Red Death = “Black Death” / The Plague (Red related to blood).

_Blood and death Poe’s obsession with Virginia illness / burst a blood
vessel and she bled from her mouth + cholera in Baltimore and Philadelphia before (1790).

_Inspiration: Paris, someone appeared disguised as cholera disease at a masked ball

/Banquo’s ghost, Macbeth, Shakespeare.

_A story of multifold significance / Eg, the relationship between art and nature.

_Prospero represents an ideal aesthetic artist –hero. He locked himself with the courtier only
because of his taste to build a symbolic equivalent of nature. All the artist's attempts to create
a perfect, controlled "artificial" world of art are doomed by human mortality.

_He creates and artificial setting to control the cycle of life. He feels he can manipulate things.

_Rooms: Seven connected rooms / left to right / east to west (like the sun)/ the cycle of life.

_Colors: Rooms are of different colors / blue to black/ middle room orange (‘cos of midday)/
Black room and red windows and the clock.

_One cannot escape destiny / The natural cycle of life cannot be altered.

_Point of view: 3rd person omniscient.

_Tone: grave, ominous.

_Simple structures, short sentences. / Descriptive words, adjectives.

_Much of the color and life in the writing comes from his word choice. Eg, "arabesque figures,"
"delirious fancies.”
 The Raven

_In the summer of 1844 Poe put into final form “The Raven.” It was published anonymously
first in January 1845 in the Evening Mirror and again in February of the same year under the
pseudonym of “Quarles” in the American Review.

_ Poe was suddenly transformed into a true celebrity. No poem in America had ever been so
popular.

_ The author wrote about how he had written the poem. He presents his creative process as an
interlocking series of conscious choices, as if the poem were the result of a mathematical
calculation. Taking into account that almost everything Poe wrote is qualified by the prevailing
duplicity or irony.

_He made emphasis on brevity. A true poem must be brief so as not to lose its “unity of effect
of impression.”

_He points out that the death of a beautiful woman was the most poetical topic in the world.
Most analysis of “The Raven” mention that it shows the impact of the deaths of three women
the poet love: his mother, Jane Stith Stanard (his friend’s mother) and Mrs Allam (Poe’s foster
mother).

The Raven

1 Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary, A (Internal rhyme)

2 Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore, B

3 While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, C

4 As of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door. B

5 `'Tis some visitor,' I muttered, `tapping at my chamber door -B

6 Only this, and nothing more.'B

7 Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

8 And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

9 Eagerly I wished the morrow; - vainly I had sought to borrow

10 From my books surcease of sorrow - sorrow for the lost Lenore -

11 For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels named Lenore -

12 Nameless here for evermore.

13And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

14Thrilled me - filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

15So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating

16`'Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door -

17Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; -

18This it is, and nothing more,'

19 Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

20`Sir,' said I, `or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

21 But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

22 And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

23 That I scarce was sure I heard you' - here I opened wide the door; -

24 Darkness there, and nothing more.

25 Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

26 Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;

27 But the silence was unbroken, and the darkness gave no token,

28 And the only word there spoken was the whispered word, `Lenore!'

29 This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, `Lenore!'

30 Merely this and nothing more.

31 Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

32 Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

33 `Surely,' said I, `surely that is something at my window lattice;

34 Let me see then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore -

35 Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; -

36 'Tis the wind and nothing more!'

37 Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

38 In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore.

39 Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

40 But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door -

41 Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door -

42 Perched, and sat, and nothing more.

43 Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

44 By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore,

45 `Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,' I said, `art sure no craven.

46 Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the nightly shore -

47 Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore!'

48 Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

49 Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

50 Though its answer little meaning - little relevancy bore;

51 For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

52 Ever yet was blessed with seeing bird above his chamber door -

53 Bird or beast above the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

54 With such name as `Nevermore.'

55 But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only,

56 That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.
57 Nothing further then he uttered - not a feather then he fluttered -

58 Till I scarcely more than muttered `Other friends have flown before -

59 On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before.'

60 Then the bird said, `Nevermore.'

61 Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

62 `Doubtless,' said I, `what it utters is its only stock and store,

63 Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful disaster

64 Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore -

65 Till the dirges of his hope that melancholy burden bore

66 Of "Never-nevermore."'

67 But the raven still beguiling all my sad soul into smiling,

68 Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird and bust and door;

69 Then, upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

70 Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore -

71 What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt, and ominous bird of yore

72 Meant in croaking `Nevermore.'

73 This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

74 To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;

75 This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

76 On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamp-light gloated o'er,

77 But whose velvet violet lining with the lamp-light gloating o'er,

78 She shall press, ah, nevermore!

79 Then, me thought, the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer
80 Swung by Seraphim whose foot-falls tinkled on the tufted floor.

81 `Wretch,' I cried, `thy God hath lent thee - by these angels he has sent thee

82 Respite - respite and nepenthe from thy memories of Lenore!

83 Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe, and forget this lost Lenore!'

84 Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

85 `Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil! -

86 Whether tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

87 Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted -

88 On this home by horror haunted - tell me truly, I implore -

89 Is there - is there balm in Gilead? - tell me - tell me, I implore!'

90 Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

91 `Prophet!' said I, `thing of evil! - prophet still, if bird or devil!

92 By that Heaven that bends above us - by that God we both adore -

93 Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

94 It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels named Lenore -

95 Clasp a rare and radiant maiden, whom the angels named Lenore?'

96 Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

97 `Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!' I shrieked upstarting -

98 `Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!

99 Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

100 Leave my loneliness unbroken! - quit the bust above my door!

101 Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!'

102 Quoth the raven, `Nevermore.'

103 And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

104 On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

105 And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,

106 And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

107 And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

108 Shall be lifted - nevermore!

_Rhythm: The repetitive rhyming makes the poem sounds like some kind of incantation. It
starts out slow and quiet, then gets faster and more intense until one can perceive the speaker
yelling.

_ Poe used the same stanza form that Elizabeth Barrett employed in “Lady Geraldine’s
Courtship.”

_Stanzas formed by five lines / 16,15,16,15 and 15 syllables Alternation of octameters

th
and heptameters (8 and 7 feet). The 5 line repeats a smaller or greater part of the fourth line.
Then follows a very short 6th line of 7syllables (4 feet /tetrameter). / Trochaic rhythm.

_ Melancholy tone to relate his setting to his own feelings about the world.

_Themes: Madness: Is he insane? Does the bird really talk or is he hallucinating?

Love: He wants a Lenore to come back. He wants a woman he can’t have and
that causes him grief.

Man and the natural world: The dark night, the sound of the wind, etc are all
threatening the room. Then nature does break in, in the form of a craven. It
brings the idea of a conflict between man and nature.

Supernatural: The craven, evil creature sent from Hell.

_The chamber: It’s used to signify the loneliness of the man, and the sorrow he feels for the
loss of Lenore. The room is richly furnished, and reminds the narrator of his lost love, which
helps to create an effect of beauty in the poem.

_The tempest outside: It’ used to signify the isolation of the man as well. It shows contrast
between the calmness in the chamber and the tempestuous night.

_Ancient and poetic language: The speaker is a lonely person who spends most of his time
with books of “forgotten lore”.